Posted by mchalesarmy on 9/25/2012 4:24:00 PM (view original):Yeah, we should continue adding to it as fast as we can.

$787 billion is child's play.

Do you have children?

It's a problem, but it's not the biggest problem and it's more easily solved with a growing economy.

Cutting spending now, while we are still in a slow economy because of weak demand, only slows the economy further. A point conceded by Romney:

MARK HALPERIN: Why not in the first year, if you’re elected — why not in 2013, go all the way and propose the kind of budget with spending restraints, that you’d like to see after four years in office? Why not do it more quickly?

ROMNEY: Well because, if you take a trillion dollars for instance, out of the first year of the federal budget, that would shrink GDP over 5%. That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression. So I’m not going to do that, of course.

Highlights:
A similar debate is occurring in Europe, with the contest presented as “austerity” versus “growth.” Yet many of the nations which practiced austerity have grown the fastest. Germany remains the continent’s powerhouse even though its post-2008 stimulus was far less relative to its GDP than in the U.S. and other European states. Both Germany and Sweden enjoyed strong growth as they brought their budgets into closer balance.

The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All cut government outlays; all are growing. Canada and Switzerland similarly rejected profligacy as policy. All these countries are following the successful examples set by other nations such as Chile, Ireland, and New Zealand in the 1980s and ‘90s, and Slovakia from 2000 to 2003.

Historical experience argues against government’s ability to “stimulate” the economy. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president during the Great Depression. He spent wildly and the economy recovered a bit, only to sink again. In 1939 Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau complained that “After eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … and an enormous debt to boot!”

"But then he uses an economic sleight of hand when he compares his best 27-month period with the first seven years of President Bush, ignoring the fact that Bush inherited an economy on the brink of a recession".